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UK Warehouse for SONY Music and PIAS Burnt Down By Fire In London Riots

The ongoing London riots have officially affected the music world through the destruction of a large distribution center in Enfield that housed stock from a slew of independent record labels, including the likes of 4AD, Chemikal Underground and Matador Records.

The three-story, 200,000 square-foot warehouse, which was Sony’s only UK-based distribution warehouse and housed the stock of PIAS Distribution, burned to the ground around 4:00 am GMT today.

Reports are currently indicating that most of the warehouse’s stock was lost in the blaze. Record labels affected by the blaze are primarily of the independent variety and have been confirmed to include Sub Pop, Vice, Rough Trade, XL/Beggars, Jagjaguwar, Kompakt and Ninja Tune, among others.

The warehouse served as a distribution center to supply local record stores with albums and DVDs from some 150 different record companies. Individual artists affected by the fire include well-known acts like Arctic Monkeys and Prodigy.

The amount of damage done to the warehouse has yet to be fully determined, primarily because at the time of this report parts of the building were still ablaze. No injuries have been reported.

Sony has said that deliveries will likely be impacted by the fire, an aspect that was confirmed via Twitter by Sunday Best owner Rob Da Bank.

“So looks like all our Sunday Best stock went up in flames last night in the PIAS blaze,” he tweeted.

Others also took to Twitter to address the implications caused by the fire.

“PIAS distribution got burnt to the ground last night, they look after XL group, domino in fact most of the big indies. More small companies hit in what could well prove to be the death knell of huge amounts of (independent) mom and pop businesses,” wrote Rough Trade East manager Spencer Hickman. PIAS was the largest distributor to local Rough Trade shops.

“There was a fire last night at the SonyDADC warehouse which services the physical distribution for PIAS in the UK and Ireland.

PIAS is working closely with SonyDADC who are implementing their emergency plans. PIAS’s UK offices in London and all other areas of our business are unaffected.

More information will be communicated shortly to all our labels and partners.”

The riots that preceded the PIAS fire began this past Saturday after London police killed suspected drug dealer Mark Duggan in a planned arrest, resulting in a 200-person march in Tottenham that quickly spiraled out of control. According to Time, there have not been so many simultaneous fires in London since the city experienced the Nazi blitzkriegs of World War II.